Hi Tiki Clean, we are so happy for you. We have visited that pole so many times while having lunch there. We would love to visit it again at your home one day. Here's a bit of information that may or may not be valid any longer. On Pacific Avenue there is a jewelery/pawn shop a few miles north of March Lane. The jewelery part is all old beautiful jewelery and worth a visit. A couple of years ago the husband of the owner told me they had a four foot long outrigger that use to hang from the ceiling in the Islander resteraunt. We tried a couple of times to speak with the wife about buying it but she always had customers for the jewelery and we always gave up. If they still have it maybe you are the one person who could get them to part with it. Good Luck, Wendy

Alright, you can't fool us, time to come "cleen" and let us know what the markup's gonna be when you flip the tiki. Clearly all that research and legwork was merely part of an elaborate resale plan.

Just kidding. If you look closely at the newer photo, I'm pretty sure the tiki has an ever-so-slightly happier and more content expression. Good job, and looking forward to seeing him in his new home someday.

thanks for the cheers all around! i need to give a major nod towards ptd and bo for making this happen. if it weren't for them, i'd still be SOL and writing ranty emails about it. which brings me to thank those who put up with said ranty emails (you know who you are), and people who were too kind to run away in terror while i was drinking and ranting about this (you know who you are as well).

hey wendy~ thanks for the tip - im on the case! not sure if it will work out, but at least i got to meet a former bouncer at the latitude 20 who is a grandmaster in taekwondo and competed against chuck norris. he was pretty neat, except when we got on the topic of jim kelly.

if anyone finds themselves in the middle of nowhere sometime, you're probably in or near ripon and you are welcome to come visit* it. just drop us a line. zazz.

I would like to join the chorus of MAHALOs to Tikicleen for this excellent bit of research!

I grew up in Stockton, and remember seeing the Islander as a wee tyke from the back seat of the family car. I never went to the restaurant myself, but I distinctly remember being afraid of the big tiki mask sign out front. This was probably due to the fact that my older cousin told me that it was a cannibal island restaurant, and they served human flesh there. Too bad I was such an impressionable youth, I would have loved to have memories of the inside of such an historic site! (But then, I used to be afraid of the Mobil Oil Pegasus as well... I thought it was a giant horse fly, and a bug that big was frightening to me.)

I was actually quite flabbergasted to find out that one of the locations mentioned is literally around the corner from the house where I grew up (and my parents still live). The Minnies at 140 Harding Way I always knew as Gong Lee's. I was in Stockton this week, took a stroll up the block to Gong's, as it is now called, and snapped a pic.

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puamana~ yes! definitely take a picture of that minnie's menu and post it on here. too bad there isnt a date....i never could get a firm answer as to when gong lee took it over.

The sign says "Established in 1957" hopefully this is at all helpful!

I've just been bitten by the tiki-bug, so I'm relativley new to this whole world, but I can feel myself becoming obsessed with the Islander!

A few years ago I was in LA's Chinatown and took a pic of old Hop Louie's. I noticed that the one in this thread is teensy weensy, and since this is such a great thread and I just retrieved my own image from a three-years-dead laptop (thanks HP ) I thought I'd drop it by:

Thanks for all of the great information about this place and the photos! I just bought a Wan-fu mug on Ebay for $10 for my wife. We love this stuff!

I grew up in Stockton and lived about 6 blocks from Gong Lee Minnie's. My family seldom went there - it was a little pricey - but I do remember that when you walked through the doors, there were goldfish ponds on either side filled with Koi and elaborately decorated with palm trees and foliage. My dad was a sign painter in Stockton for 50 years* and so I also know that the guy who painted all of their signs was named Glen Martin and had a 1-man shop Stockton for just as long as my dad was there. This guy might be dead now, but he would have pics of the old signage (which was a huge billboard on the the west-facing wall). I live in Seattle now, otherwise I would try to track him down.

*Unfortunately my dad is dead, too, but he was the foreman at Ad-Art Signs from it's start in the 50's/60's through the 1970's. He was involved in large projects - like making the patterns for the Stardust motel in Las Vegas for instance (at the time the largest sign in the US) - so there is a likelihood that he may have been involved with the Islander sign. Alas, it's too late to ask him about it, but In thought it worth a mention. He probably painted the sign at the end of that gang-plank,too, damnit!

Anyhow, thanks for the information and stories. this place is great!

I never got to visit the Islander, but I remember it, awkwardly placed in the parking lot with a K-Mart. I did go to the Polardville Chicken Kitchen; which was a western-themed, audience-involved, vaudille type showplace. It was cheesy.
but the food was okay.

Well here is an update on the Stockton Islander. It was never demolished by who ever bought the land and it's still standing, although it is in super serious disrepair. I went on expedition today, making it passed the guard dog i found a way inside (dangerous!). The place is trashed, its so very sad. It is beyond repair. Almost every thing tiki is gone. The only treasure I found was a plank of wood that is cut tiki style. I hate to be there bearer of bad news but here are some of the pics i took while there.

Wow, thanks for taking those interior pics - no doubt risking life and limb in the ruins of the building! I thought I was seeing things when I passed by there a month or so ago and saw the building still standing - I also thought it had already been demolished.